Perfectionism vs Productivity: Balancing Your Inner Voice and Positive Thinking
What I have learned as a high achievers coach is that there are many opinions about perfectionism. Some people say that it’s something from which you can recover. Others say that it’s a trait to emulate. I believe that perfectionism is a characteristic that people are born with. If you have the perfectionistic trait while you are working hard in London, Chicago, Atlanta, and NYC, you likely see it in many family members, as well as your ancestors.
Perfectionism has its pros and cons
There are pros and cons to perfectionism. The pros are that you get a lot of stuff done! And done well! The cons are that you can drive yourself into the ground and burn out. I should know. I have the perfectionism trait. In the past, I was living in San Diego, California, navigating how not to burn myself out, when I realized that perfectionism is something I can learn to MANAGE. It’s all about embracing productivity and balancing your inner voice and positive thinking.
Tackling Your Internal Critic
One issue that many perfectionists face is that they have an inner critic running an evil monologue throughout the day. It happens like this: I have a therapy session. It was amazing, with lots of breakthroughs. My evil internal critic says, “You shouldn’t have said that last thing because it may have made your client feel sooooo weird.”
See what I mean? It surpasses all of the amazingness of the session and hyper-focuses on the supposed mistake that’s really based on conjecture. To borrow from Dr. Brené Brown and Jenni Shaefer, it is like an evil gremlin or “should monster” in my brain.
Identifying your inner voice
It’s so important to identify your inner voice so that you can distinguish what is your emotional mind and your wise mind. Coming from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), your emotional mind is where the eating disorder and inner critic live. Your emotions are driving the car and you are locked in the trunk. When you get to your wise mind, you feel centered, grounded, and calm.
It is your authentic self that for some, is connected with spirituality. Using mindful techniques to calm down your nervous system helps you move from an emotional mind to a wise mind. The more you live in a wise mind, the better you can problem-solve and feel like your true self as you do it.
Cultivating self-compassion
When I was working with my eating disorder therapist, she told me that at the end of each day, focus on what went WELL versus what went wrong. At first, I thought she was nuts, but then I started doing it and it made a HUGE difference. I didn’t realize how much my gremlin/monster was defining my day and influencing how I saw the world.
What is mindful self-compassion?
Mindful self-compassion is a powerful tool to evict the gremlin/monster from my brain. Showing myself compassion means (a) identifying and validating my emotional experience, and (b) practicing radical self-acceptance.
Here’s what I do: I put my hand on my heart (sometimes I even give myself a hug), and I say, “Marianne, I know you feel bad because you said X. That’s tough. Please know that you did so many amazing things in the session, and even if you didn’t, the therapeutic relationship is strong, and often that’s all that matters. Regardless—you are okay and I love you.”
Positive thinking vs. toxic positivity
So there’s been this THING coming out on social media regarding toxic positivity. Although it’s brought helpful awareness of how super-duper positive comments aren’t always helpful, it’s also generated a lot of confusion. Let’s explore both concepts.
Does positive thinking really work?
Yes. Full stop. When I was in my 20s, I didn’t think it did. Then I began practicing it, and it really, really helped my negative self-talk. I read the book Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns, and I began filling out the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) sheet to track my negative thoughts and restructure them into positive thoughts. I do this all the time in therapeutic conversations with my clients. I have it built into my self-paced, virtual binge-eating recovery program. CBT really works!
Positive affirmations
Affirmations can sound REALLY cheesy. Well, let’s sit down and have some cheese together because they totally work. One affirmation I love is “I have enough. I do enough. I am enough.” It’s especially powerful for perfectionists, as we never feel as though we have, do, or are enough.
So telling ourselves the opposite, over and over again, changes the way we think about ourselves. I had a friend who had this quote written on sticky notes, and she put them on the dashboard of her car, on her bathroom mirror, on her phone, on her computer, etc. It’s all about repetition.
How toxic positivity can derail you?
Toxic positivity means when you, or someone else, is so positive that it invalidates and dismisses your emotional experience. One powerful example is when you have a loved one who has died, and a person comes up to you and says, “Don’t cry. She’s in a better place now.” It’s both a clear invalidation of the devastating grief and a minimization of totally appropriate emotional expression.
Relationships and Toxic Positivity
You may have grown up in a family rife with toxic positivity. Did you ever hear, “Don’t be so sensitive? Look at all the fun things that are coming up!” I sometimes cringe when I hear people say “be grateful” because I think that many folks can use it with a toxic positivity tone. For example, “Be grateful that you have friends” (when a kid is crying about being bullied. It really sucks.
Self Compassion and Positivity Require Balance
What does this mean for you? It means that when you practice positive thinking, make sure that you pair it with a healthy dose of self-compassion. Validation and acceptance are vital to transforming the inner critic to a force for self-love. Begin to balance your inner voice and cultivate (helpful) positive thinking as you recover from binge eating and other eating issues!
If you need support with self-compassion, positivity, and your relationship with food, a high achievers coach is a great place to start!
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Disclaimers for Body Image, Binge Eating, and My Virtual Online Binge Eating Program
*The INEVITABLE BINGE EATING RECOVERY PROGRAM is online binge-eating education and private virtual group support via a Facebook Group. The aim of this course is to help people reduce and eliminate any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The INEVITABLE BINGE EATING RECOVERY COURSE is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.
**The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is virtual binge eating education and LIVE virtual coaching support. The goal of this program is to help people stop any type of distressed eating, such as binge eating or binge/purge behaviors via education, behavioral changes, and mindset shifts. The ELITE BINGE EATING RECOVERY METHOD is not a clinical eating disorder therapy or eating disorder treatment program and is not intended to serve as such. In them, Dr. Marianne Miller works from her role as a binge-eating coach, not as a binge-eating therapist.